Guild Wars 2

Curious if anyone is playing a “fun” rifle build. I have played scrapper hammer for a while now, and am honestly bored. Especially with the fact that no group of 10+ seem to want me, so am looking for something “fun” and hoping rifle might be that.

The range of it attracts me, though i am unsure of even where to start. Is hybrid rifle any good for decent ranged / condi on crits? (firearms traits)

I am not looking to beat everyone, as i know i do not have the skill, nor the time to develop the skill to do so. I just want something that is fun, that i can zerg surf, and scout a bit etc.. if i decide to roam so be it, i know i won’t last long :P

All advice and build suggestions are more than welcome!

Rifle in itself (hybrid build) isn’t going to do much damage in zerg fights, sure “Hip Shot” pierces but the incendiary powder is gonna be cleansed near instant and the power damage alone isn’t going to put enough pressure on someone (it will be outhealed). (I dont know how a pure power rifle with damage dealing sigils/food/traits performs (or mortar?)).

My personal experience with my hybrid rifle build in zergs is that other than ramming a tornado in a 10-20 man zerg, pinning down/killing flankers, pulling/moa’ing single targets (sometimes from walls/ sometimes commanders) into our own zerg and giving a bit of healing/cleanses, I dont feel verry usefull in a (+20) pug zerg let alone something organized. Thats why I mainly roam/scout/kill siege/close walls to cut off reinforcements…

Power HGH Rifle worked out well enough for me when I ran it. You get a lot of utility out of elixirs and spend any free time plinking away.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Power HGH Rifle worked out well enough for me when I ran it. You get a lot of utility out of elixirs and spend any free time plinking away.

Just beware OP, the rifle HGH build…. is expensive.

What is the rifle HGH build if you don’t mind me asking?

Not worried so much about expensive, as i have a full set of ascended trailblazer, and full set of marauder, so i can swap pieces to other stats if and where needed.

I was more interested in the idea of hybrid for when i roam. as it seems going hybrid would help deal with everyone being a thief, warrior, or other cancerous class. (oh wait that’s everything except engi

Caffeine.6724:

What is the rifle HGH build if you don’t mind me asking?

Not worried so much about expensive, as i have a full set of ascended trailblazer, and full set of marauder, so i can swap pieces to other stats if and where needed.

I was more interested in the idea of hybrid for when i roam. as it seems going hybrid would help deal with everyone being a thief, warrior, or other cancerous class. (oh wait that’s everything except engi

Ill give you a link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlcTh6rY1Vw8KQ+FLTG1461eRA9cn3Bu4zUABAA-TxRBQBA4BAQSlgXU53DuAA3THwBV/hf7PAA-e

The build is based on abuse elixirs via HGH so you empower yourself with tons of boons, 25 might, fury, quickness, and more other boons, all thanks to that high amount of boond duration from the commanders stats.

These elixirs will also be your only way of cleanse conditions. (The elite will cleanse 3)

The reason behind why rifle over hammer is because you are an easy target if you cant keep up with the distance of your opponent, thing that shouldnt be a problem with the rifle aa, not to emntion, in zergs it would be suicide, this is not a frontline build, its a midline build.

The build is selfish but the aoe stability is sometimes helpful for the team, along with the aoe stealth.

Be aware of this things:

—HGH build is useless against thives .
HGH rifle does barely well on mid- distance ,but thieves will be on your back ,so after you waste your jump shot and your blunderbust on them while they permadodge,you are done.
Thief can steal your boons,Stability will be the first thing that is stripped.
Rifle net shot is useless against thief,cause they remove immobilize , chill and cripple by simply dodging.
Overcharged shot it’s useless,cause theives run a 15 seconds stunbreak + shadowstep,so goodluck trying to CC them and burst.
You cannot run away from a theif with that build,cause even if you stealth and walk for a while,with their short bow they can catch you in a blink.

—Same for warriors,jumpshot and blunderbust isn’t enough to deal enough damage to a warrior even with 25 might stack on you,they wont even notice you hitted them.
Overcharged shot it’s useless against warriors ,it’s hard to CC them with all the stability/stunbreak they have.
Warriors will make you go under pressur with their constant burst damage,and you will not be able to escape them,cause they can catch you in a blink with their mobility.
You can’t kite a warrior,especially using rifle,that NEEDS to straight face your enemy while firing(and facetanking that burst damage the warrior will do on you).

—Revenants will eat you,no matter what.They have more mobility,they have more evasion,projectile block,more CC than our rifle ,insane burst,antistealth skill.

—Necros will just condi spam you,convert your boons into condis to death.Elixirs will be able to clean the first necro condi spam and CCs, but after a few seconds the necro will spam you with a second wave of condis and CCs,and good game,you are done.

—Memsers,you may have a chance with them.Just try to stay always at mid distance,use a lot your autoattack to pressure them,time correctly your stealth skills(they go stealth=you go stealth to avoid their burst from stealth).

—Druids,if you see them,just run,or at least try…cause they can catch you.Their pet will melt you while he will facetank your poor damage , and your burst (jump shot+blunderbust) will be outhealed in few seconds .

—Eles,just run from them too.They can outheal you very easly,and they can reflect a lot of your projectiles while CCing you with stuns and cripples and chills every few seconds,so even elixirs wont be enough to clean that CC spam.

—HGH rifle build,will make you face the fact that in gw2 there are a lot of reflect skills,that make your rifle autattack get reflected or negated most of the times in the crucial points of the fights,be it a 1 vs 1 , or be it a group fight.

In zerg surfing,just forget about rifle and mortar,the damage is negated almost totally by mesmer fields,eles auras,guardians reflects/boubles , scrappers running gyro , driuds converting projectiles into healing , etc etc.

My tip,if you wanna try this build,please refrain from spend a lot of gold to convert the stats of your ascended armor into a commander one,jsut for the boon duration.

You told you have marauder armor,just use it to test this build putting on marauder armor some rune with boon duration,take some food with boon duration,take HGH trait from alchemy line,and you are done.

Try the build for 4-5 days,only then,if you find it FUNNY , spend the gold you want to spend and get your commander armor.

Try that build,but keep in mind rifle is aoutdated and developers never revamped the skills to at least HELP witht he projectile hate HoT keep in that game.
So don’t expect miracles,i just hope it can provide you the “fun” you are looking for.
Good luck.

At this point I believe that Rifle needs the +10% damage (through increased firing rate) removed from the rifle trait in Firearms and made base (not in the form of +10% firing rate but in the form of 10% more base damage). Replace the lost (from the Rifle Trait) 10% damage with a 4 second cripple every 10 seconds on critical hit (50% chance). This may help the weapon with being able to zone opponents such as warriors or to simply keep them from simply walking away from an Engineer as most classes can.

Static Discharge’s damage should be buffed by 10% as well since it still does not do enough damage to make the choice between the other traits in it’s line a worthwhile debate. And its number of bounces increased to 3 instead of two in order to allow it to perform versus Mesmer Clone farms.

Rifle 4 (Overcharged Shot) should be changed to a 1/2s Daze to the Engineer with a 750 distance knock-back. This change would maintain the synergy it has with the Tool-Belt traits as well as improve Synergy with the lesser used GM trait for Scrapper called Impact Savant.

Rifle Turret needs either a 30% damage buff or the ability to apply two stacks of vulnerability per hit when over-charged in order to bring it’s burst on par with what would be necessary to act as competitive spiking/burst damage. It’s cool-down should also be reduced to around 16 seconds normally and 12 seconds when picked up. This would allow Rifle Turret to provide stronger or more consistent pressure against targets that have low heal cool-down.

And finally, it would help if Gear Shield got it’s 3 second block back or rather that an appropriate Rifle Skill got access to the ability to apply a brief duration blind so that we could instead use player skill to avoid the more deadly attacks out there.

After the majority of these things happen then we can perhaps visit the idea of a viable Rifle build for solo or group roaming. Current builds can kill a few of the young ones who don’t know much about what they are doing in the first place but against any veteran of WvW, you will be easy bags to collect.

Ivantreil.3092:

Ill give you a link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlcTh6rY1Vw8KQ+FLTG1461eRA9cn3Bu4zUABAA-TxRBQBA4BAQSlgXU53DuAA3THwBV/hf7PAA-e

The build is based on abuse elixirs via HGH so you empower yourself with tons of boons, 25 might, fury, quickness, and more other boons, all thanks to that high amount of boond duration from the commanders stats.

This build is pretty awful. Kinda trolly to put it out there, especially for newer players to invest a bunch time/effort getting cmdr stats… Not going to able to tag in zergs, guaranteed to get completely destroyed by roamers, no cleave will make even flipping camps a chore…

Also there is much more efficient ways to get boon duration (i.e. not giving up loads of stats from your gear choice) if that’s what your going for:
- Run with a rev for facet of nature / naturalistic resonance
- sigil of concentration
- food/nutrition slot

I run full burst damage on the rifle and run exp/tool/scrap (though you can drop scrapper for alch or firearms). The rifle has amazing single target control that can be used to keep enemies in place while dealing a couple high burst hits. The job this engi has in our group is to create attacking opportunities.

The main tool is the magnet pull. When well practiced, you can easily pull any target in a zerg or small group without fail (exceptions of random occurances). Immediately after the pull is when you land the burst. If you’re running with a small group, this is a death sentence for the target. We rarely find use for hammer scrappers.

OP, look up Chrissy Bear on YouTube. He has a good Rifle WvW setup.

Famine.7915:

I run full burst damage on the rifle and run exp/tool/scrap (though you can drop scrapper for alch or firearms). The rifle has amazing single target control that can be used to keep enemies in place while dealing a couple high burst hits. The job this engi has in our group is to create attacking opportunities.

The main tool is the magnet pull. When well practiced, you can easily pull any target in a zerg or small group without fail (exceptions of random occurances). Immediately after the pull is when you land the burst. If you’re running with a small group, this is a death sentence for the target. We rarely find use for hammer scrappers.

Can I get a link to your build? It sounds interesting

Don’t know about them, but I used to run this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUh+uYJWwkLQ7FLbGF9YX2r94DUABw36kb9GA-TJBHwAd2fAwDAoZZADXAAA

Stats: Mostly zerker, but sub in soldier trinkets as needed to survive zerg fights

Opening combo was something like:

Magnet – pull in close
Pry Bar – hit for some damage + confusion
and/or Jump Shot – takes slightly longer, but more damage. sometimes save this for escape if needed.
(dodge any counterattack)
Blunderbuss – more close-range damage
Overcharged Shot – cc them away
Throw Wrench – two hits with good damage and it slows them a bit
Net Shot – bit more cc
Grenade Barrage – hit them with huge aoe burst while they’re stuck at mid-range
other skills (grenades for aoe + soft cc, rifle auto for chasing, etc).

Elixir Gun can go in place of Rocket Boots for more sustain + a stun break, but you can’t chase or escape as easily. You could also use Elixir B for some on-demand stab, which helps with Jump Shot, or Elixir S which helps stomp.

Change Mortar Kit for Sneak Gyro in small groups.

I would NOT recommend this build unless you’re comfortable with all the skills and can use them with proper timing. If you Overcharged Shot into a cc trait, you’re gonna have a bad time. If you shoot or throw nades into reflect, you’re gonna have a bad time. If you Jump Shot over a trap or cc line you’re gonna have a bad time.

Edit: oh, and you’ve got no condi clear except 2 per ~20s on Healing Turret. Have fun! Blast lots of light fields!